


the irony of choking on a lifesaver

by clairina



Category: Radio 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, early 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:50:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairina/pseuds/clairina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick has been gloriously fucked over by what he had thought was his longtime boyfriend but obviously it was just an asshole that managed to make Nick believe everything like a stupid little girl. And if he'd only fuck over Nick once and then leave him alone that would be fine but no, he is a manipulating asshole that purposely destroys Nick on so many levels but somewhere down the line Nick finally gets sick of it and calls it a day and swears to himself that he'll never be that stupid again and he meets Henry and Gillian and moves in with them and then instead of believing in love and romance he just looks for hookups in bars and that really works out for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the irony of choking on a lifesaver

Stop fucking around with my emotions  
I like you better when you're numb  
I'm sick and tired of false devotion  
Devote yourself to moving on  
Or suck it up and let it go  
  
But you're always out to get me

 

"Get the fuck out. Now!" Nick's lucky because Sam actually leaves after he's yelled at him like that and doesn't get to see him slumping down after he has smashed the door shut like a melodramatic little girl. It probably wouldn't make a difference though because for the last two years he has obviously made a complete fool of himself anyway so what would a little bit of slumping down change, right? Right now the amount of dignity and self-respect he has left isn't really that high but he still thinks that that would give him the rest.   
Of course he's always known that he was the needy one in their relationship. The one that admits their feelings first, the one that tries to engage the other in talks about important stuff, the one that stays at home while their boyfriend is 'working late'. What he hasn't known is that Sam has been a fucking dickhead all along. Nick has always brushed it off as difficulties with showing how he feels or talking about emotions and stuff. In reality he is just a disgusting wanker who has managed to take the piss out of Nick for more than two years. Two years of his life. Wasted on thinking that he was in a relationship where he was an equal partner with shared feelings and all that. Bullshit.  
Everyone at least once told Nick to let the fucker go the second he had asked for a break. But no, being the independent adult man he was he made his own decision which mostly consisted of saying yes to Sam calling him at two in the morning to crash at his place and have sex. Disgustingly egoistic sex to be honest. Most of the times it wouldn't actually have made any differences to Nick's satisfaction if they hooked up or not. Sam isn't much of a giver he guesses. But that was alright for him because he is one and he adores - no, adored him and he was fine.   
Now that he is sitting in his flat and thinking back to those things he doesn't really get why that has been fine with him but well...love is blind. Completely blind. He should've gotten himself a guide-dog. Or at least glasses maybe.   
But because he is an independent adult - say it often enough and it becomes true - he decides to get the last bottle of cheap wine that sits in his fridge and empty it. In one sitting. On his own. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He doesn't care that it's eleven o'clock on a sunday morning. Somewhere in the world it's a decent time to drink wine. He'll go with jetlag or something if somebody asks. Jetlag because he just came back from pretending-to-still-be-in-a-relationship-land to shitty-reality-ville and the journey wasn't exactly comfortable. Paired with the crash landing he has just gone through most people would probably beg him to drink another bottle.   
The thing is he actually thought he could maybe fix him or something. Make him fall in love and want to settle down and all that. Now that that clearly hasn't worked he is going to drown in all the pity he is feeling for himself and nobody is going to save him. Because nope, definitely not telling anyone. Except maybe his mum. He is just going to move back to Oldham, say London didn't quite work out for him and never ever talk to any of his friends ever again. Especially not Henry who he actually had a semi-fight with two days ago because he cancelled on him to see Sam.   
Wine bottle in his hands he wonders if this is what his life will be like from now on. Low-budget radio and tv productions that are never going to see the light of day and pathetic breakups that leave him in the biggest pit of shame and self-loathing of all time. He definitely hasn't planned it like that. He didn't move to the big city to end up here. Nearly twenty-four, definitely too chubby, - maybe that is one of Sam's reasons he hasn't really been able to explain earlier - underpaid and ridiculously heartbroken sitting on his kitchenfloor and drinking wine out of the bottle.

He's already planning all the things he'll be doing for the next three to twenty years he will spend on the floor when his phone scares the bloody hell out of him by vibrating against his thigh. Instead of picking up he stares at it for a while. Ten past one. He actually spent two hours here...impressive. But then it slowly dawns on him that he was meant to meet Gillian at half twelve and her name keeps angrily lighting up his display. There might be a connection.   
"Gellz, I'm sorry."  
"You better be. I have been standing here for twenty minutes pretending to read texts from my imaginary friends so I don't look like the totallest loser of losers."  
"We were meant to meet fourty minutes ago..."  
"Well - you didn't arrive on time, did you? So stop judging, twat. Where the bloody hell are you? If you are with that excuse of a-" His friends don't exactly like Sam. Which has been quite annoying up until now but maybe he could use one of Gillian's rants about all the things that are wrong with him.  
"I just threw him out actually."  
"Oh Grim. I'm so-...I'll be there in ten, yeah?" Never has he heard someone's voice go from slagging someone off to pure pity so quickly. He likes Gillian. She at least pities him in these situations and doesn't yell at him like Henry normally does.  
"Yeah, bring w-"  
"Wine, yes. Lots of it. See you in a bit, babes."

\---

"Get laid is what you need, my friend. You've been spending how long moping about and not leaving your flat unless it's for work?" Seventeen days, Nick thinks. But he just shrugs like he doesn't even know what Henry's talking about. Except he does. In the last seventeen days he has told himself to get out there and his life back together exactly twenty-one times. He didn't go through with it once. But he also hasn't called Sam yet. So that's a win. "Well, too long. That little fucker wasted two years of your life, get them back. Go out, fuck people, get pissed and forget him." Sitting behind Henry Gillian is nodding her head so hard Nick is scared that she might have a concussion after this. "Just come with tonight. Small get-together. No big bash. But lots of even more insecure people than yourself." Somewhere deep down he feels the need to protest about that insecure part but if he remembers correctly he has whined about his torso being too chubby and his legs too skinny and his hair too curly to Henry so that wouldn't really turn out convincing now.   
"Fine. I'll get changed, I guess."   
"Yes, you will. Come on." Right, he knows that he spent seventeen days in quarantine but he's still pretty sure that he can get changed by himself. So he throws Henry a questioning glance as he tries to pull Nick towards his bedroom and receives an enthusiastic smile in return.  
"Gay hipster makeover. We'll throw out every big comfy tee you own. None of that. You look about three thousand percent hotter when you dress appropriate to your actual hotness." Nick snorts at that - shocked that he is still able to do that - but gets a very disapproving look from Henry. That wasn't supposed to be a joke then.

\---

He actually doesn't feel too bad once there's much too loud music in his ears and a way too strong longdrink in his hands. Small get-together his ass. They end up in some awfully crowded and sweaty club with too many wasted people apparently drinking their sorrows away as well. Gillian has already left them about an hour ago because she ran into some cousin of a friend and shots were offered and well. She's gone. And Henry's chatting to some blonde with smudged lipstick and way too bright hair so Nick is his social and charming self talking to everybody that wants to talk to him and after about twenty minutes nearly everyone at the bar is his friend and he has about ten drinks in front of him.  
When Henry comes back Nick's got a good amount of alcohol in his blood to have forgotten about Sam almost completely until - well now. Because he's thinking about him. But another rum will help with that.  
"Henry, mate. You're back. Who was that lady?"  
"Someone from work-"  
"Meh. Thought you work in _fashion_." The bartender sets down a drink in front of him and nods towards a shy blonde guy at the other end of the bar Nick talked to a few minutes ago. He was funny. Nice lad to buy him a drink but he already has ten so he shoves it over to Henry who is scolding him apparently.   
"She's a nice woman, Nicholas. But good to see your bratty self is back. What are you doing with that drink?" Staring at shy blonde guy Henry pushes the glass back to Nick who once again slides in Henry's direction feeling like he's in a stupid comedy.  
"I already have about three hundred of them. Take the fucking drink, Holland." He likes Henry but sometimes he seems a little slow.  
"Where'd you get it?"  
"Him." Nick nods towards blonde guy who immediately flashes him a rather cute smile. He wonders why he thinks he should buy Nick a drink. When he looks back at Henry he's staring at him like he's waiting for something to happen. "What?"  
"God, you are thick. Get your bloody arse over there."   
"Nah." They already talked. About ... something. And it was nice but Nick has been distracted by the way blonde guy licked his lips and bit his lip. But why would he go over now? _Hey, bite your lip again, I'd like to awkwardly stare at it?!_  
"We are not leaving before you at least snogged that boy's face off. Take him home and I'll buy you lunch tomorrow."   
  
Nick leaves the club an hour later. Blonde shy guy - Kyle - giggling against his shoulder as he waves for a cab to take them back to his place.

\---

After he has collected his earned lunch he leaves with not only new confidence but also great plans. Because apparently Henry wants to move out of the hectic center of the city and he thinks Nick needs a change of scenery as well. To top it all off Gillian is bored of her current flatmates and as you do over lunch they decide to move in together. Because three okay salaries make one good salary and that means they can at least posh up their life a little. And for the first time in eighteen days Nick feels like he might be seeing a light at the end of the tunnel after all. His appetite - both for sex and actual food - is fed, he _doesn't_ have Kyle's number in his phone which makes the whole thing feel so much better because fuck commitment and he threw all of Sam's stuff onto the street this morning after he found the three texts and five missed calls from him. It actually is a quite liberating feeling and as he comes back to his flat he makes a pact with himself. A pact not to even think about commitment again. Fuck long term relationships, fuck emotions, fuck settling down. He is turning twenty-four this summer. He will finally lose the long overdue babyfat from his belly and face and he will go out there and fuck every boy he finds until there's not one guy in London that doesn't know his name. He is going to work his ass off and finally make something out of his pathetic existence. He will have the most fun with Henry and Gillian and there won't be a single day where he will think about love or feelings or any of that shit. Maybe twenty years from now he will adopt a cute little baby with an even cuter boy that isn't twenty yet but until then he won't give two shits about relationships. Apparently he sucks at them and he guesses that that's fine. Not everybody can be good at everything. And judging from the things Kyle moaned last night Nick is good at loads of things. If committing to someone properly isn't one of them then oh well, he'll survive.

\---

He's sitting on the couch and enthusiastically watching himself on the telly when they gang up on him. Both Gillian and Henry stand there arms crossed and faces forced into a serious mask when he looks up at them.  
"This is an intervention, Nicholas." Henry starts and Gillian giggles for a second before she manages to pull herself together again. He doesn't know what this intervention is for yet but from the look of it he will survive so he shuts off the TV and stops chewing on his crisps so he'll hear them. Maybe he should invent silent crisps. He could be rich in no time. "I hit my head and couldn't find my keys this morning because I didn't want to wake the bloody Diesel model in our lounge by turning on the lights. I love to see you enjoying yourself but either you send half of them to my room-" For that Henry earns an elbow to his ribs from Gillian. "...or we set some ground rules on when they need to be gone again. We both need to get up early for work and we know you don't because late night work and all but...yeah. It is very distracting and inconvenient. Especially on a Monday. I already have my problems going into the office. Male Naomi Campbell lying on my couch doesn't help." Henry smirks obviously remembering the things he's seen and Nick can't judge him for that. He has done quite well for himself lately.  
"What Henry is trying to say is that you are a horrible flatmate and need to stop bringing them round." Of course. Gillian the sane one needs to step in and remind Henry of what they were initially trying to do before he started recreating those images in his mind. And being the good friend Nick is he promises to take it down a notch and all that. "Good. Now I will leave you two to meet up with the normal people in this world."

\---

"God, you're so-...fuck...I wanna-" Kiss him. Yes. Nick notices that. Which is why he turns away kind of on instict because kissing is intimate and emotional and he does not want that. He is in a clubtoilet for a reason. No matter how nice those guy's lips are and how pretty he is Nick is sure he can use them for something better which doesn't come with that much attachement. For a second he thinks about how his attitude towards these kinds of things has changed. Last year at this time he's been a mess because Sam broke up with him and he felt shit about pretty much everything in his life. Now he has a well paid job at T4 and he loves his friends and going out with them and just enjoying his time. Without someone whining about emotions and all that stuff. He's definitely over that. And because he has practice in this he ignores how the guy's face drops when he notices that Nick doesn't kiss him on purpose and attaches his lips back to the skin on his throat to distract him. "Can't we go back to yours maybe? More intimate, yeah?"  
"Flatmates." They are both at the club with him and most definitely not going to be bothered by anything once they get home but he doesn't need to know that. He earns something like a sigh for that and slowly starts to lose interest because if that guy brought him here to ask him for more then no, thanks. "Listen, if you don't-"  
"I do." Nick smiles when his technique works but that goes unnoticed because the bloke is already dropping to his knees in front of him and fumbling with his fly. When Nick feels his lips on him he wants to praise someone for how his life turned out for a short moment but he quickly abandons that thought and tries to concentrate on keeping it quiet with a lot of potential listeners on the other side of the door.


End file.
